Office of Acquisition and Grants

How Do I Apply?

STEP 1: Solicitations Posted; Application Period Begins

Determine your eligibility for the open announcement found on SSA’s Grants page. Register or update your registration on the Sam.gov website. For a competitive discretionary grant, submit your application through Grants.gov. For a continuation grant, submit your application via GrantSolutions (GS) system as stipulated in the announcement. Most announcements or Request for Applications (RFAs) are open for 45 to 60 days. Be sure to include all pertinent supporting documentations. For example, if you are requesting indirect costs, include your most recent indirect cost rate agreement. If the RFA says include resumes, please do so.

STEP 2: Application Review

Applications are initially reviewed to ensure that they meet the basic minimum requirements for registration information and completeness set forth in the solicitation document. Representatives from the Program and Grants Offices review each application. If the application is competitive outside experts from the field conduct peer reviews. The applications are then reviewed to make sure the information presented is reasonable and understandable and that the proposed activities are measurable, achievable, and consistent with program or legislative requirements. For continuation applications, the Grants Officer will ensure all prior year program and Federal Financial Reports (SF-425) have been submitted.

A Grants Officer will also conduct a cost analysis to determine whether the budget and budget narrative accurately explain the project’s costs and whether those costs are reasonable, necessary, and allowable in accordance with the appropriate OMB Circular. Therefore, it is vitally important that you include a separate Budget Summary and Justification which clearly shows calculations for each expense or line item in a Budget Category (Personnel, Fringe, Travel, Equipment, Supplies, Consultants/Contracts, Other, Total Direct, Indirect, and Total Project Costs.)

STEP 3: Award Notification

SSA will notify all successful applicants electronically via an e-mail notification from GrantSolutions (GS) no later than September 30 of the calendar year. SSA Program Officials notify unsuccessful applicants by December 30 of the calendar year.

Eligibility

Applicants applying for grant funds may include State and local governments, educational institutions, hospitals, and nonprofit and profit organizations. Private individuals are not eligible to apply for support under the existing SSA research and demonstration grant programs. Profit organizations may apply with the understanding that no grant funds may be used as profit to grant recipients. Profit is considered any amount in excess of the allowable costs of the grant recipient. A profit organization is a corporation or other legal entity which is organized or operated for the profit or benefit of its shareholders or other owners and must be distinguishable or legally separable from that of an individual acting on his/her own behalf.

For information about other grant programs and financial support sponsored by the Federal government, please refer to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance at www.cfda.gov.

Troubleshooting

Grants.gov

Applicants having trouble with Grants.gov should contact the Grants.gov support staff at support@grants.gov , 1-800-518-4726. If the issue is not resolved through the Grants.gov helpline and these problems prevent the submission of your application through Grants.gov, you may contact the SSA Grants Management Team for assistance.

GrantSolutions.gov

Applicants having trouble with GrantSolutions should contact the User Support Help Desk. The number to call is (202) 401-5282 or (866) 577-0771, M-F 8am – 6pm EST.

SSA Grants Management Team

If you continue to experience problems feel free to contact a member of our staff:

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